It’s easy to glibly compare this year’s Academy Awards to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. That won’t stop me, but there’s more to it.

Both are awash in charges of racism that have upset minorities and brought angry white people out of the woodwork in reaction. Both have also garnered reams of publicity from their respective situations, clearly to the advantage of Republican frontrunner Trump. Results aren’t as positive for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which faces calls for boycotts of this Sunday’s Oscar ceremonies, but they aren’t entirely negative either.

Last year’s first #OscarsSoWhite fiasco essentially added another criticism to the usual litany about out-of-touch academy voters. You know the list: Personal and industry politics influence their choices more than artistic excellence does; they’re scared off by challenging art anyway (while they’re too pretentious to consider great comedies, superhero crowd-pleasers or animated features as best picture material); they don’t even watch as many of the movies as they should, ad infinitum. But a second year of all-Caucasian acting nominees, in addition this time to a best picture field focused exclusively on white people’s problems, has marginalized Oscar conversations that aren’t about diversity.

And that, for all the criticism of the academy that it rightly entails, has made the organization appear to be something more serious than the self-congratulating, product-promoting operation it’s usually perceived as. The group’s president, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, may have reacted somewhat inelegantly by swiftly moving, after the nominations were announced in January, to restructure the voting membership along more equitable race and gender lines by instituting something that gives the appearance of ageism. But the consequent outcry from all quarters has generally resulted in a more nuanced examination of prejudice than anything heard in the GOP debates. Additionally, it’s shifted the conversation in the industry and, to a degree, outside of it away from silly (if powerfully symbolic) awards to the more practical and potentially productive issue of why women and people of color are so underrepresented in Hollywood. That’s come up before — USC released its umpteenth damning study of the problem this week — but since it’s ricocheting off the only thing, Oscars, that studios care about almost as much as money, it might actually induce real changes this time.

I must say that even for a die-hard critic of the awards industrial complex like myself, the current debate has made me a little less cynical about the Oscars’ intrinsic cultural value. As well as the impulses of the voters, many of whom have persuasively expressed their commitment to honoring good creative work as they see it. Whatever unexamined sense of privilege some individual members may reveal in the save-my-voting-rights missives that have been made public, the discussion has been downright civil and pitched toward finding equitable, real-world solutions compared with Trump’s and other candidates’ primary rhetoric.

It remains to be seen if any of it will gain true traction in what passes for the marketplace of ideas these days. In a time of insult campaigns for the highest office in the land, as well as a month when the aggressively vulgar and destructive comic book hero Deadpool is breaking box-office records, it’s possible that genteel, thoughtful approaches to problem-solving make the academy look out of touch in another, most unfortunate way.

Whichever way that goes, I’m glad — which I’m not always — that my job requires me to watch the 88th Academy Awards telecast. I have no argument with anyone who wants to boycott the show, but I don’t think I’m alone in looking forward to hearing how host Chris Rock and all of the presenters of color hired to hand Oscars to white winners skewer the appalling situation. There’s potential for both great comedy and cultural tragedy. And if there’s an improvement in the program’s generally down-trending ratings, well, at least that will lead to more interesting discussions.

As with the presidential primaries, though, all anyone ever really wants to know about the Academy Awards is who’s gonna win. While Oscarology is always utter guesswork, which is why awards bloggers who try to “science” their predictions trip up year after year, like political pundits who have repeatedly underestimated Trump, factors specific to this one make handicapping the top two races quite intriguing.

It looks like “The Revenant” will take best picture, and its director, Alejandro G. Inarritu, will win his contest. Say what you want about the Western’s thin plot and thick self-importance, but middlebrow academy members who love it love it like angry white voters love you-know-who. Passion is the main reason why “Revenant” will probably win, as it usually is; “The Hurt Locker” and “12 Years a Slave” are this century’s standout wins for the right-thing-to-do, and maybe artistic excellence, contingents.

In addition, the Mexican auteur is admired for virtually going to the ends of the Earth to achieve his vision. However, it’s no doubt run through some voters’ minds that there’s a right-thing-to-do element here too in this second annual #OscarsSoWhite cycle. “Revenenat”/Inarritu wins, following last year’s “Birdman”/Inarritu wins, will make the highest-profile minority nominee the first director ever to claim back-to-back best-picture Oscars. Immigration advocate and outspoken Trump critic Inarritu would only be the third person to do the trick in the directing category as well. It would also mark the third year in a row that this overwhelmingly old white male (and politically liberal) voting body has chosen works by filmmakers of color in these two prestigious categories. Almost as mind-blowing as trying to figure out what Trump truly believes, isn’t it?

As for all those Caucasian actors, odds-on-favorite logic goes as follows.

“Revenant’s” Leonardo DiCaprio because cold + it’s time — no other best actor competitors looked like they were trying as hard. “Room’s” Brie Larson takes best actress for an incredibly well-measured portrayal of a character who suffered as much, in her way, as Leo’s did in his. I could make Trump or racial or old academy guy comments re: Sylvester Stallone most likely taking the supporting actor trophy for his umpteenth round as Rocky in “Creed,” but let’s just chalk it up to standard Oscars sentimentality plus a li’l somethin’-somethin’: It truly is the aging contender’s best performance ever. Finally, while it’s a bit of a mystery why Alicia Vikander’s perfectly fine leading lady performance in “The Danish Girl” has won the Hollywood establishment’s heart over Rooney Mara’s deeper and more mysterious “Carol” co-lead, perhaps Vikander is winning the unfair fight for the supporting actress Oscar because she’s playing the only straight starring role in either of those movies. Remember when the admirably multiethnic “Crash” beat the better “Brokeback Mountain” for best picture not too long ago? Academy prejudice works in complex ways.

Back on the limited-inclusion front, it’s likely that Mexico’s Emmanuel Lubezki will become the first cinematographer to win three Oscars in a row, for “Gravity,” “Birdman” and, probably, “Revenant.” And while the foreign language film Oscar should quite deservedly go to the innovative and harrowing Holocaust drama “Son of Saul,” just as good is the most genuinely diverse work nominated by the academy this year, “Embrace of the Serpent.” Colombia’s first nominee tackles the costs of colonialism in such complex, nuanced, justifiably angry and trippy ways, it could even make Donald Trump’s head explode.

As for the academy’s diversity migraine, it should be eased by all of the money made from Sunday’s telecast. However people on the show address it will be discussed and written about for weeks after, and perhaps it will inspire more inclusive casting of future films. At the same time, real moviegoers can enjoy the no-big-deal multiethnic thriller “Triple 9” and, in a few days, “Zootopia,” the most astute cartoon critique of prejudice ever made. See it before it’s ghettoized in the best animated feature category at next year’s Oscars.

Bob Straus has been covering film at the L.A. Daily News since 1989. He wouldn't say the movies have gotten worse in that time, but they do keep getting harder to love. Fortunately, he still loves them.

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